Politics As Usual

This cold core of this essay was written in the spring of 1984, during the Presidential primary campaign. It turned out to be fairly prescient I think, especially in its harsh opinion of Gary Hart.

It's a sad fact that we depend almost entirely on the clichés created by the media to assess our political candidates, since we suspect the media of a kind of constitutional tendency to over-simplify, to sensationalize, to vulgarize. Indeed, it is this suspicion which has led us to encapsulate our scorn in that very epithet, which has itself become a crude over-simplified cliché: The Media. But dependent we are--although not entirely. We can, if we really need to, still get close to a live candidate now and then.

Prior to the Arizona primary I was one of those scourges of political pundits and pollsters--a genuinely undecided voter. My own political instincts--just to establish for the record whose prejudices are where--are snugly close to those of George McGovern, for whom I cast the first vote of my life in the 1972 presidential election. (As time goes on I become increasingly proud of that vote, considering what became of the alternative.) Despite these noticeable left-leanings, I found myself systematically incapable of making up my mind in the 1984 Democratic primary. Depending on my mood, or the day of the week, or the news of the hour, I found myself inclined at one time or another to vote for all three of the erstwhile Democratic pretenders. I resolved therefore that the only way to come to a resolve, was to go and see the candidates in their fleshy selves, to try to get a feel (a vibe as we used to say) for each one. The media it seems had failed me, and I had to revert to an earlier form, a gesture from the era of whistle-stop tours and before: I had to go see for myself.

Brunch With Walter

Each of the candidates held a highfalutin' event of some sort: usually a so-much-a-plate something or other. I was not invited to these. They also held an open event of some kind, an event in which anyone who fancied themselves a supporter could come and support. I find these more democratic events more telling; they draw a crowd determined not by economics or official status but by perceived affinities. They tell you who the candidate's real bed-rock supporters are. They provide more of the flavor and color of a campaign. Vibes run high.

Mondale appeared at a late afternoon open-air rally in Heritage Square, which is a well-groomed historical reconstruction of turn-of-the-century Phoenix houses, maintained by the City and staffed with eager and bright young college students from nearby Arizona State University. The lawns are unbearably fresh and brightly green; the single food concessionaire a hip little bistro called the Duck & Decanter which features brown bag lunches (called Nooners) for the crowd from the Civic Plaza next door. The open-air pavilion, and encircling late Victorian architecture, created a kind of urban renewal oasis in the midst of the downtown squalor. The very essence of everything with the word civic in its title.

And the crowd, oh my God the crowd! I believe I saw every Democratic politico in the state that day. Although I am an Arizona native, prior to that day I hadn't ever seen the Governor or the Mayor or the Junior Senator from Arizona or the Superintendent of Public Instruction or three-quarters of the City Council or half the state legislature or half a dozen retired labor leaders or the former Governor or the Chairman of this and the Vice-Chairman of that. But they were all there, in one breath-taking bevy, spilling over the edges of the speakers platform.

Thanks to Walter Mondale I was able to stand next to the Governor (Bruce Babbitt) and eavesdrop as some casual acquaintance brought his nervous wife in tow to meet his buddy the Governor. And to watch as he gave her a hug and pretended with obvious charm and grace that this guy was an old buddy for sure. Or to see the Mayor of Phoenix hanging out with his daddy, the Former Governor, and note that slightly forlorn look in daddy's eyes, as it became clear that the son was now a bigger celebrity than father. Hispanic political leaders, a traditional force in Arizona's Democratic politics, were everywhere. Fewer blacks.

And the civilian crowd! Older Democratic voters. Guys in jackets and caps announcing the Brotherhood of This and the Federation of That. Placards promoting the National Education Association, the American Federation of State & Municipal Employees, N.O.W., and dozens more which memory failed to note. A real rainbow coalition if ever there was one. Older traditional Democratic voters, blue-collar union members, Hispanics, middle-age women, government workers, educators, and the honest-to-God Establishment in Democratic politics.

I must admit, I felt comfortable with this crowd. There is something soothing and reassuring about all this conventional liberalism. I liked it, and felt at home. I don't know whatever happened to the dreamy radical of my college days, but here he was amidst the establishment liberals and feeling it was the most natural place in the world to be on a lazy May afternoon, drinking a Hansen's (all natural) lemon-lime soda and munching three-bean salad in a Styrofoam cup from the Duck & Decanter as he waited for The Candidate to arrive. And I'll be damned if Mondale himself didn't turn out to be the very icing on the cake.

I was not prepared to like Walter Mondale. On television he comes across as puffy and dry, unlit by any particular spark. The reality is very different. In person I found him to be smooth and charming, likable beyond all expectation. As he makes his way through a crowd you sense confidence; and a quality I can only describe as an aura of trust. When he spoke he didn't set the crowd on fire, but I found myself believing him. The vision he created was comforting. A kind of warm father-figure whom you can trust to take care of everything. That's nonsense of course, but we demand of our leaders that they create some kind of grand nonsense, and as nonsense goes that one will serve.

Walter Mondale is one of those unfortunate modern-day politicians who come across better in person than on T.V. Which means the poor fellow is doomed. He hasn't got a chance against a suave media hound like Reagan. I knew at that moment in May, 1984 that Walter Mondale would never be president, and I could have saved him a fortune in consulting fees and the Democratic Party a ton of Alka Seltzer. But nobody in that sunny crowd wanted to hear anything like that.

Against all expectation, I like Walter Mondale. I trust him. I feel comfortable in his presence. The vibes are good. Who ever would've thought.

From Barry To Apostasy

Before we go too much further, I had better own up to my political heritage, so the reader can judge just how it shades my perceptions.

My entry into the crazy-quilt world of politics was not refined or sanctioned. My mother was a volunteer in Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which meant she staffed a campaign trailer: handing out leaflets, answering phones and generally engaging in the standard civic virtues. There was something fresh and wholesome in the atmosphere of that campaign trailer. I think it was the freshness of hope. My mother and many of her fellow Arizonans believed that righteousness was at last about to reign in that cesspool along the Potomac. I liked visiting that trailer, it felt good.

My father traveled to Prescott to attend Goldwater's formal announcement of his candidacy. He took an 8 mm video of the historic occasion and showed it for years afterwards as an example of his proud participation in great events.

I was a self-appointed volunteer in the guerrilla war for God, country and the Goldwater way. My chosen duties consisted of peeling Johnson bumper stickers from the cars of unsuspecting Democrats and pasting fresh Goldwater stickers on the naked bumpers of the unsuspecting no matter what their affiliations.

In my defense I should point out that I was 14 years old at the time. I'm not sure what my parents have to say in their defense, but then perhaps no defense is necessary. It's hard to recall, for those who saw these events darkly through the lens of an uncomprehending media, but Barry Goldwater represented a populist hope in that time and place. And populist hope is an honorable instinct, even if the prophet who sounds its clarion call is not up to the nobility of that honest hope (as Ronald Reagan would demonstrate when next this populist call would sound.)

Rock-ribbed conservatism runs in the family you see, and in the neighborhood and in the whole darn state pretty much. My mother worked for Barry and Daddy was a member of the John Birch Society, as I live and breathe. For many years I got to read the monthly magazine of the Birchers and assorted other missives they sent our way. They were always pretty much the same, some collaborating pinko was in bed with some well-known commie sympathizer. Usually the story was illustrated by the Crucial Photographic Evidence to prove it was all only too true. The photographs had an unusual quality, which I would not see again for many years until I recognized the technique on the covers of the National Enquirer.

Lest Daddy take offense, I should hasten to add that I didn't see Birchers as all that crazy. They just misdiagnosed the problem. The Birchers saw their world in terms of the Conspiracy Theory of Life. The only way they could figure it, this crazy world could only be explained by the idea that there were crazy people deliberately making it so. So the natural enough task would be to identify the crazies and make sure that decent folks weren't accidentally taken in by them.

Myself, I've always been more inclined to the Ineptitude Theory of Life. Most of what happens most of the time seems to me to be mostly bumbling. Evil intent requires more finesse than most of us are routinely capable of. Which, by the way, is why I am fairly confident Oswald acted alone in Dallas. I doubt if half a dozen people could successfully conspire to do anything. If half a dozen guys were helping Oswald, one of them would have overslept, one would have gotten on the wrong bus and would have ended up in Fort Worth trying to shoot Jim Wright, two would have mistaken Governor Connolly for Kennedy and another would have been wandering aimlessly around Dealey Plaza trying to figure out just which grassy knoll he was supposed to stand on.

I did try to keep the faith. By the time I was sixteen I was a big Ayn Rand fan. A little more subtle I liked to think than ripping bumper stickers off cars, but on the same side of the boat. My fascination with Ayn Rand started to teeter though after the Incident at the Wayside Drive-In.

I was an odd duck, I guess, in our small Northeastern Arizona hometown and when word got around that a girl in nearby Winslow was also an odd duck, and an Ayn Rand fan (and a Bircher, it turned out), my buddies rushed to the opportunity to set up a meeting (not a date really, just a meeting, on neutral territory) with my female counterpart from the next town. We were to meet at the Wayside Drive-In. At the appointed hour I stood, heart thumping, visions of glandular thrills coursing through my teenage veins. As my dream-woman approached and said hello time suddenly compressed and before we could exchange deep and meaningful philosophical communions, her boyfriend jumped out of a nearby car and came charging at me. I deduced immediately that he was not an Ayn Rand fan. I have a hard time remembering what happened next, or even what my dream soul mate looked like, all I can see is a stunning right cross sailing across the horizon and colliding with the side of my head. I'm not sure, but I think the blow may have jarred my gyroscope, I notice I have had a decidedly leftward tilt ever since.

By my senior year in high school I had fallen off the boat completely. This fact was brought forcefully home to me in a private meeting I had with Mr. Dillon, the high school principal.

I first saw Mr. Dillon when as a sixth-grade Boy Scout I went to the high school to participate in a noontime flag-raising ceremony. Mr. Dillon was tall and rail-lean, with closely cropped gray hair. To say he looked like a Nazi from Central Casting would be a cheap shot, but it would also be true. As the students assembled in front of the three-story glass facade of Old Main at the High School, two Mexican kids made the fateful mistake of cutting across the corner of the lawn instead of hugging the cement sidewalk. Mr. Dillon approached them in a rage and struck them with one sweep of his arm, powerful enough to knock them both down. As they got up he kicked them in the butt and knocked them down again. He then drove them up the concrete steps of Old Main on their way to the Principal's Office. As I watched through the glass facade, he kicked them in the rear every few steps as they went upstairs, making their progress slow and leading to more kicks.

That was my first sighting of Mr. Dillon. I should have taken it as a helpful hint from the gods.

As a Senior working on the school paper (The Sagebrush) I penned an editorial criticizing America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The year was 1967 and I was 18 years old. The journalism instructor saw this as the opportunity he had been waiting for to give that troublemaker DeWitt a little comeuppance, so he casually told me I needed to go to the Principal's Office to pick up my editorial from Mr. Dillon.

The meeting was unprecedented and awkward, but clearly, the skids had been greased. Mr. Dillon towered above me as I stood alone before him. It was the only time I had ever been eye to eye with him. At first he pretended not to understand what I wanted. But after he tired of this little cat and mouse prelude, he dramatically turned and reached into his trash-can and pulled out a sheaf of papers, holding them by the tiniest corner, as if they had been dipped in dung before being discarded. "You mean this piece of trash?," he sneered. (What was I to say? Yes, I mean that piece of trash.) "You mean this communist, subversive, traitorous piece of trash?" (By this point I wasn't sure we were talking about the same piece of trash.) "Listen punk, and listen good, you've got ten seconds to get out of my office before I kick your ass and this piece of trash out that window and all the way to Berkeley where you and your kind belong." (I was familiar with Mr. Dillon's talent at kicking assess, so I took the ten-seconds side of the deal.)

Yep, I had definitely fallen off the boat.

Preach Jesse, Preach

To return to our narrative: later that same evening it was Jesse Jackson's turn. The nighttime meeting was held in the auditorium of a long-closed high school, in the heart of downtown Phoenix. In noticeable contrast to the open-air Mondale affair, the mood was somehow grim. You had to pass through a screening in which police, Secret Service, and self-appointed Muslim security guards, checked bags, purses and bulges in jackets.

The crowd was almost entirely black. Gone were the blue-collar union types; the distinguished old money Democrats; the prominent officials. The only official on stage was the Chief of a small southern Arizona Apache tribe. I saw no evidence of any coalition in that group, rainbow or otherwise. A few Indians, lots of ordinary black folks in their Sunday finest, young fierce-looking Black Muslim brothers in their uniforms of jet-black suits, white shirts and red bow ties, and stoic-looking Black Muslim sisters all in white, with a speckling of maybe half-a-dozen pale faces in the audience.

There was a heavy presence of the Black Muslim organizers, who ran everything from usher chores, to security, to passing the collection plate when the time came for a money pitch. The collection plates were actually family-sized Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets, and by standing in the doorway of the exits they managed to shame and intimidate me into tossing a $1 bill in as I left--my first monetary contribution to a political campaign.

As Jackson began to speak I began having a severe case of the deja vu bends. I seemed to be back in the sixties. Back in one of countless similar gatherings from those years. Jackson introduced his red brothers, and the representatives of Caesar Chevez farm workers, a woman from the Gray Panthers, and a handful of black elected officials. It was as if nothing had changed in twenty years. Or as if a lot had changed but no one seemed to notice.

Jesse Jackson is gifted with God's own eloquence. He starts slow and inviting, drawing the listener in. The volume turns up as the crowd warms. A scattered "Hallelujah!" here, an emphatic "AMEN" there. His voice begins to rise, the passion welling up and providing a smoldering modulation. He talks in rhymes and rhythms, a poet more than a politician. The crowd gets excited now. People are jumping out of their seats, hollering "You tell em brother," and "Preach Jesse Preach!" And preach he does.

And when he's done, and it's time to ask for money, it doesn't happen in cool, subdued ways. Like a pulpit preacher, Jesse Jackson asks contributors to come down front and be saved, by holding their check on high and announcing their redemption to the congregation. And they do, some tearful, others shame-faced like a Sunday school penitent, some proud and defiant, expressing their solidarity with the most righteous of causes.

Most of what he said was right on. And I enjoyed the revival enthusiasm. But lord, did I feel out of place--and out of time. I knew, then and there, that Jesse Jackson wasn't going to be president anytime soon. His rainbow coalition may be the most righteous coalition around, but its also hopelessly ill-fitted to the times--like a bad suit six sizes too big, the sleeves drooping to the knees and the pants billowing out like sails in back. Jesse Jackson in 1984 was resolutely black and stuck in the sixties. I was neither.

Where's The Beef?

There is something that has been bothering me about elections and all that goes with them. We go on and on about the issues, and bemoan their perpetual absence, and never seem to draw any obvious conclusions about the fact that this complaint is eternal and yet we continue to have elections with alarming regularity. So I suggest the following heresy: elections are not now nor have they ever been nor will they ever be, about issues. What matters in selecting a leader is character. Qualities of leadership, judgment and wisdom, and the degree of spiritual maturity in evidence, are what really matter. Issues are just secondary significators of internal character; we trust they bear some nomic relationship to the inner moral landscape, and so we use them, in the absence of direct personal contact, to make our best informed judgment. If the media wants to help they should ignore all talk of issues and just give us more in-depth personal profiles of the candidates. (Not the stage-managed, fictionalized profiles created by the campaign committees, but real, revealing, personality profiles.)

Elections are not about ideas, new or old. They are about leadership. The president is the moral leader of the culture, giving direction and definition to the processes of social life. He/she isn't so much the person who does things, as the person who inspires the broader society to do things. Ronald Reagan, to give that devil his due, was a consummate leader. He articulated and embodied a rich vision of a set of values I don't happen to share, but he did so with a mastery America has not seen since the days of FDR.

Despite George Washington's canny refusal to assume the trappings of a monarch, the U.S. Presidency has always been the Imperial Presidency. We look to the President to be a kind of super father-figure (perhaps a mother-figure some day), to be someone whose deepest function is to persuade us that everything is fine, that Father will take care of it all. We seek reassurance as much as anything. (And someplace to lay the blame if it doesn't go well.) Which is why I have long thought that the ideal President would be Perry Mason (from the early T.V. series). For just call to mind that feeling of absolute competence that Perry Mason brought to every situation, the calm certainty that one had at the beginning of every episode that nothing could arise that Perry couldn't handle. He was the ultimate father-figure. That feeling is what every President strives to evoke.

So like it or not, we choose our President not so much on issues as on character. And, perhaps to our peril, our impression of a candidate's character is almost entirely shaped by their television performance, and whatever descriptive scribblings the press sends our way. And if perchance you watch all the television performances you can bear, and read until your eyes go blurry, and still can't make up your mind, still can't get a read on the candidate's character, then you have no recourse but to situate yourself somewhere near enough to the actual person to, at least indirectly, press the flesh.

Mingling For Gary

Two days later Gary Hart showed up for a brief afternoon stopover at the airport. His chartered plane pulled up to the Commuter Executive Terminal and a small crowd of about twenty people mingled on the grass next to the tarmac.

I was dumbstruck by the crowd. Young yuppies everyone. The women were in their twenties, young and earnest and too, too pretty. The men were young and earnest too, well-tailored in their shorts and shirts from Banana Republic, as they wore casual like it was a formal attire. Standing next to me was the only other person over thirty in that crowd, and I recognized him as the leading political reporter for a local paper--so he didn't count because he had to be there. He was making little reporter's notes on a tiny pad, and I wondered if he felt as out of place as I did in that group and whether he noticed how uniform they were, and I wondered whether he would remark on this startling phenomenon in his column the next day (he didn't, concentrating only on the issues).

Gary Hart deplaned like a friendly conquering hero and strolled over to our grassy knoll to chat informally with us. He was dressed in a western suit and had on brown, real-leather, cowboy boots, just to show us he was a regular westerner like us. Only he seemed as out of place as a drag-queen at a church bake sale, since the entire crowd was the Brie & Perrier With Lime set, who had nothing but contempt for real cowboys.

He gave us the fifteen minute version of Gary Hart On The World. Brimming with ideas is this Gary Hart. Smartest little son-of-a-bitch you'll ever meet by-cracky. Clearly superior to those dolts he's running against. He has White Papers for Christ-sakes. White Papers on everything. Nuclear deterrence you say, well here's my White Paper. The environment? Right here in my White Paper. Crime, drugs, and rock and roll? Read all about it in my White Papers. Gary Hart thinks that leadership is about ideas, and since he perceives himself to be the most intellectually capable of the candidates, he can't understand why this doesn't simply equate to the conclusion that he ought to be President.

Gary Hart suffers from the dread delusion that it's all about ideas, rather than character. Maybe he hopes it's about ideas and not character, because he's got big trouble in that area. I don't know how to put this in any polite way; but this guy gives me the creeps! There is something unwholesome about Gary Hart. The words are all right, and he dresses well (if inappropriately sometimes). He doesn't drool or slur his words or break wind in public. But something dishonest is going on. Just under the surface is some other face than the one he is showing us. I kept getting an eerie feeling that he was like one of those reptilian characters on TV program The Invaders, if we pealed off his face we would discover he was really a lizard underneath. No thank you. I prefer mammals for my leaders, if you don't mind.

I don't have any conclusion about his electability, but I'm worried. Friends and countrymen, there's something sinister about this guy. He can't be trusted.

An American Political Typology

(Portions of the following section have been added subsequently--as indicated by italics.)

During her first Christmas in the White House, kindly, just plain folks Barbara Bush strolled over the South Lawn, across E Street down onto the Ellipse, where, at a ceremony which tugged at the heart strings, she flipped a switch lighting the nation's Christmas Tree. It struck me as a little incongruous at the time, since during the eight years of his presidency Ronald Reagan always lit the Christmas tree while standing on the South Portico of the White House. He never actually walked the 500 yards to where the common folks (and the tree) were. Initially I just wrote this incongruity off as George's attempt to make an opening populist gesture, like Jimmy Carter's open air stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue during his inaugural parade. But it turns out something more sinister was revealed by Barbara Bush's early December stroll.

We have now learned that during his entire presidency Reagan never actually lit the National Christmas Tree. Instead, a guy with a walkie talkie was hidden out of sight behind Reagan, and when Reagan flipped a switch which was connected to nothing, this guy radioed to a Park Ranger down by the tree who flipped the actual switch. But hey, it looked good on television.

Somehow, for me, this little vignette sums up the entire Reagan presidency.

Another summary judgment, if one is needed, was inadvertently offered in a petulant moment by Lyn Nofsinger. Nofsinger is an ugly, unappealing character; perpetual cigar hanging out of one corner of a sneer, rumpled fedora cocked to the side over a bearded grumpy face, with manners to match. But every politician needs a thug, an enforcer, a guy to do the dirty work. Reagan had Lyn Nofsinger.

Early in the Reagan presidency complaint was voiced at the low level of qualifications of many of the political cronies Reagan was bringing with him into government. The suggestion was even made that many of them were outright incompetents. "So what?," bellowed Nofsinger. "Goddamnit, now it's our incompetents turn!" Nofsinger's one redeeming feature is that he was crude and unpolished enough to occasionally tell the truth.

I remember vividly the first time I heard a politician tell the truth. While Barry Goldwater was defeated soundly in 1964, many of his fellow cactus-skin conservatives made their way into Congress for the first time, there to plant their secret seeds to bloom and be harvested by Ronald Reagan a decade and a half later. One such character was Sam Steiger. Steiger was only just a bit more polished than Lyn Nofsinger, but he was every bit as blunt, which is why he only lasted a couple of terms before self-destructing. (Years later Steiger would further splinter an already damaged Republican Party in Arizona by running as the Libertarian candidate for Governor against our hapless Republican Governor Ev Mecham, for which he earns some points.)

My little hometown of Holbrook is the county seat of sparsely-populated Navajo County, and each year we host the County Fair, around my birthday in early September. One of the staples of these small-town County Fairs is that the local politicians hang around dispensing the glow of their presence, and usually participating in a live radio interview. (We have no television stations within a hundred miles of Holbrook.) As it happens, I was listening to the only radio station in Holbrook one bright September afternoon when our new Congressman, Sam Steiger, was being interviewed. The first question out of the box was, "Well, Sam, how do you like being a member of Congress.?" Steiger chuckled at this apparently unexpected question, paused a moment, and then said, straight out, on the radio, "Well, it sure beats the hell out of heavy lifting." (I realized later that this is an old politican's witticism, but at the time, it was for me a revelation.) I can't tell you how exhilarating it was to hear something so blunt and honest. For Bill Clinton the defining moment of his political imprinting came when he met John F. Kennedy. For me, it may have been this moment when I heard for the first time (and very nearly for the last time) a political leader utter the simple, blunt truth.

So, despite Lyn Nofsinger's honest, if inadvertent, caution, we acclaimed Ronald Reagan as President Extraordinaire. How could we go so wrong? How could we be such willing suckers for a guy like Reagan? I think I know the problem.

The problem is, there are four political philosophies in America and only two political parties. The four political strains in America are: Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals and Populists. The easiest way to see the distinctions is by looking at the tensions in two issues: how we view the role of government in shaping the economic life of the nation and how we view the role of government in shaping the moral character of a nation.

Libertarians believe the government ought to keep its nose out of everyone's business. Period. The government has no business promoting economic equality and no business policing peoples morals. That Government Is Best Which Governs Lest is the true Libertarian motto. (Although I like to think Jefferson wouldn't throw his lot in with todays Libertarians, but maybe I'm wrong.) Todays Libertarians believe the government ought to provide for the national defense and not much else. No Social Security, no labor laws, no obscenity laws, no laws forbidding gambling or prostitution, or drugs, etc.

A genuine Conservative believes that in the economic realm it's pure laissez faire, but in the realm of morals, people should behave in approved ways and the force of law and the iron fist of government can surely be applied in furtherance of this end. Conservatives believe in family values, the free enterprise system, outlawing homosexuals in various professions, and so on.

A good, old-fashioned, honest-to-God Liberal (there are many fewer of them than we think) believes the government must intervene to prevent huge economic disparities, and that government has an obligation to look after the poor and disadvantaged, but resists fiercely any intrusion of government into the private conduct of its citizens. This is why Liberals are supporters of all sorts of artsy, deviant causes.

A Populist is pained by the specter of economic inequality and exploitation, but shares many of the same moral values and tastes of the Conservative. So a Populist is willing to countenance an intrusive government in both the moral and economic realms. The Populist stands up for the little guy against the corporate bosses, believes in environmental activism and civil rights, but also thinks the National Endowment for the Arts goes too far in offending the sensibilities of decent citizens.

Now, the trick performed by Ronald Reagan was simply to smear three of these political categories into one and convince us that there were only two political philosophies possible: Liberals and Everybody Else. And since most people don't see themselves as Liberals, God forbid, they must be part of Everybody Else. Reagan did it to Carter and Mondale, Bush did it to Dukakis, and a whole generation of Republicans, of whatever flavor, have hit upon it as their one simple trick to get into office. (It is interesting to speculate as to what Reagan really was. He was so smooth a chameleon that I must confess I haven't the slightest idea.)

I think the Republic would be well-served if we could somehow manage to create two additional political parties and to assign everyone to the true party of their choice.

If I Were King

To prove that I am not solely a smart-ass with acid in his pen and cynicism in his heart, I suppose I should do the responsible thing and offer my solution to politics as usual. Fair enough. If I were king:

1) I would establish four political parties,

2) Political campaigns would be limited to one two-week period every two years,

3) All media would be required to devote the full two-weeks to campaign related news and special events--free of charge,

4) Advertising in political campaigns would be illegal,

5) Financial contributions to politicians/campaigns/candidates would be illegal,

6) No one could serve in Congress for more than six years, and the President would be limited to one term.

I don't know. Might help.

My Secret Ballot

Well, in case you haven't figured it out already, and in the spirit of full-disclosure, I suppose I should tell you how the story turns out. Who did I vote for?

Leaving aside Gary Hart, who I am convinced will one day be found out to be an alien from another planet and hence ineligible to run for the presidency, my choice came down to Jesse Jackson vs. Walter Mondale.

I was inclined to support Jackson. His politics, his positions on the issues, being closer to mine. And I enjoyed his style: the absence of the usual politician's long-way-round to say nothing while appearing to say something; the poetic rhythms of his rhetoric; his tendency to suggest radical reformations of the body politic; the passion and smoldering righteousness. No doubt about it. I was high on Jesse. But ultimately I couldn't feel at home. Those Black Muslim brothers with their red bowties, God love em, didn't look like the guys from my neighborhood, and they made it clear they didn't want me in theirs. The tribal gathering of the rainbow coalition seemed like something out of a time-warp, like watching old episodes of Star Trek and still getting excited. As the old political saw puts it: voters want to be asked for their support. I wasn't asked.

Walter Mondale, I am still amazed to report, was warm and real and compelling. I flat-dab liked the guy. I felt at home among all those white, middle class liberals, because I am, after all, a white middle class liberal. Funny how that works. I knew Mondale was doomed to lose, because his flair failed to survive the distortions of his image into all those cathode ray electrons spraying the phosphors of Americas television sets. But in person Mondale was lively and fun and welcoming. And so I voted for Walter Mondale--a sucker for charisma to the very end!